Wilson was later executed in front of a crowd of over 20,000. A few weeks later his fellow radicals John Baird and Andrew Hardie were also executed for high treason.

So ended the Scottish insurrection of 1820. Variously known as the Radical War of 1820, the Radical Rising or Scotland’s Peterloo, it has not attracted the coverage that one might have expected of a major upheaval that shook the British state.

The rebellion was a revolutionary insurrection against the government by a radical movement for political reform that had grown frustrated by the government’s contemptuous and repeated dismissal of its demands. The radicals wanted universal suffrage, annual Parliaments and payment of MPs.

The rising began on 1 April 1820 when a proclamation signed by The Committee of Organisation for forming a Provisional Government was displayed across Glasgow and other areas of central Scotland.

It called for a strike but also urged soldiers to rebel.

Around 60,000 workers obeyed the strike call—a remarkable number at a time when the working class was very small.

In a letter to the Home Office, Glasgow’s Lord Provost Henry Monteith noted with alarm, “Almost the whole population of the working classes have obeyed the orders contained in the treasonable proclamation.”

The strike and the rebellion that followed were supposed to be coordinated with a rising by English radicals.

The Scottish radicals had been stockpiling weapons and were drilling in preparation for revolt. But the rising in England did not materialise.

Nonetheless a small group of 35 radicals led by Hardie and Baird marched on the Carron Iron works in Falkirk in an attempt to seize arms and munitions.

They were intercepted near Kilsyth by troops of the 10th Hussars and the Stirlingshire Yeomanry.

After a brief skirmish, in which both soldiers and radicals were wounded, 20 of the radicals including Baird and Hardie were taken prisoner.

Another group of radicals led by James Wilson marched from Strathaven 15 miles outside of Glasgow to link up with radicals thought to be planning an attack on Glasgow.

At a meeting before they set out John Stevenson, one of the leaders, said, “If we succeed it will not be a rebellion, it will be a revolution and we shall receive the gratitude and thanks of a free and happy nation.”

However, hearing news that the insurrection had failed they disbanded and tried to return home. Twelve were arrested including Wilson.

Escorting

A further disturbance took place at Greenock, outside Glasgow, when soldiers escorting radical prisoners came under attack from an angry crowd determined to free them. Ten people were killed by the soldiers.

The catalyst for the radical rising was the Peterloo massacre at Saint Peter’s Field Manchester on 16 August 1819. Then cavalry and yeomanry charged unarmed demonstrators calling for parliamentary reform.

The bloody repression at Peterloo triggered a wave of solidarity protest meetings across Scotland. A memorial rally of about 5,000 radicals in Paisley resulted in clashes between protesters and cavalry which provoked a week of rioting. However, the causes of the radical rising ran deeper than Peterloo.

Widespread economic distress fuelled political discontent. It was made worse after 1815 by the huge increase in unemployment at the end of the Napoleonic wars.

Returning soldiers sought employment and workers in the armaments industry were laid off.